Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:00:18 +1000 (EST)
From: Christopher Mcmahon <Christopher.Mcmahon-AT-jcu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: surplus value



I think the section on banking, capital etc. (the joy of decoded flows -
almost as good as shopping) describes a style of the movement of capital
(associated with late modernity?). Ezra Pound - Cantos on "Usura" - spring
to mind. And as you have written, Weber and Lukacs. Capitalism has become
a global system (full body replacing the pic of the big blue momma sent by
Armstong, Buzz and that Other Guy?), so most of the exploitation does not
happen in the postmodernized 1st world, but in the underindustrialised and
semi-corporatized and still-pseudo-feudal-agrarian zones of
underdevelopment (underinvestment?).

I reread the section, but I can't see the line where they jettison
'expoitation'. But I follow your
critique. It is a rather fuzzy area in AO & ATP. It's certainly not
systematised like Marx - but it is systematised in a way. The books are
full of systems, and most of them are capable of being pretty vicious.

I suppose the word 'exploitation' belongs too much to ethics and not to
what bataille would call a 'a work of political economy'? One of the
things I like a bout the book - an aspect of its sophistry that appeals -
is how they avoid confronting ethics (we're tired of ethics?) while still
seeming to come off okay as basically decent folks with what are
at heart christian values.

But they still look more dangerous than say, Irigaray (lets love everybody
by sacrificing our subjecthood) or, say, Levinas. This dangerousness is a
disregard for ethics and hence the issue (as a moral issue) of
exploitation? But not for the way expolitation works (its "machine-ery")?

- Chris